Florence, Constantinople and the Renaissance of Geography written by Sean Roberts

If the world is any way upside down, it may be owed to one’s preconception laid down from maps–and by proxy, those who chart, print and distribute them. To know this is to understand that one’s purview is not at all personal or unique, but very carefully, er, mapped.

In the December 12, 2012 edition of the Wall Street Journal, it was recognized that “[a]mong cartographic misfirings, the disaster of Apple Maps is rather minor, and may even have resulted in some happy accidents—in the same way that Christopher Columbus discovered America when he was aim- ing for somewhere more eastern and exotic.”

And so it is that Sean Roberts’ fine title, Printing A Mediterranean World, is a book that may seem a specialist effort—but it is one that will change the way you look at your world, the world and worldly ways.

Like language, cartography is pervasive to the point of not being seen even as it is a staple on which we rely with every step, every utterance and every thought. Moreover, maps, in conjunction with the emergence of movable type and the greater printing press, was what helped certain cultures spread their influence over the raw power of others. As Roberts aptly puts it: “This seemingly extraordinary circumstance was made possible thanks to the emergence of an enterprising Renaissance print culture in a world still significantly with- out borders between East and West that modern readers have come to take for granted.”

To not have this title in one’s library is to fail to understand one’s own perspective from the ground up. In Printing... Roberts explains exactly why we should not ignore the history of maps. Replete with a wonderful number of maps and illustrations, it is a staple in understanding our world.

($49.95: Harvard University Press, 2013, hardcover, 336 pages)